Real estate dealers protest multiple tax

Real estate dealers protest multiple tax LAHORE: Hundreds of real estate businessmen violated court orders and might of the city administration and blocked The Mall on Monday and created one of the worst traffic jams.

Police claimed there were around 500 protesters, but independent sources put the number even lower. Life on and around The Mall came to a standstill; all arteries leaving and leading to the main city road were blocked for hours.

“It seems the government has simply gone missing from the city and its roads,” said Mansoor Ahmad, a motorist, who was stuck in the jam for more than two hours.

He said the government maintained rallies violated Section 144 and court orders. “Why does it keep mum when every Tom, Dick and Harry assembles a few dozen protesters and blocks the entire city?”

The real estate agents had taken out a protest rally to express disapproval of the recently imposed tax on sale and purchase of plots and houses, and assembled before the Punjab Assembly building where the legislative branch of the province was meeting. They gathered there around 4pm and ended their protest a little before midnight.

According to the city administration, the protesters had neither given a time schedule nor wished to see any government official to end their protest.

“It was total chaos on the roads,” said Muhammad Tahir. “Police were diverting traffic from the Regal Chowk to narrow arteries where thousands of vehicles were stuck,” he lamented.